Today classes officially started. I have my culture class in the morning 9-11 AM and my Portuguese class in the afternoon from 2-6 PM. (That’s right, FOUR H-O-U-R-S of Portuguese class.) By the time class is out it is already dark outside. In the culture class we talked about the Brazilian government, geography, laws, etc. After class I came home for lunch (which was delicious with veggies, chicken, rice, and beans) and I made some revisions on my outfit. I was wearing jeans, my tennis shoes, and my button-up long-sleeve western-ish shirt with a tank top underneath. I felt like such an alemão that I had to switch to sandals and just the tank top.

Speaking of clothes, the host mom is supposed to wash our clothes for us but we have to wash our own underwear. I’m still trying to figure out how exactly I’m going to do this. Conchita suggested that I should wash it while I’m showering. I’ll let you know how that goes…

I was placed in the Intermediate A Portuguese class which is level 4 of 5. My class was in a little closet of a room with about 7-8 students. The class wasn’t quite as painfully long as I expected and the level was comfortable.

I’m afraid today wasn’t nearly as eventful as the past few days have been, although I did buy some plain yogurt (my favorite) at a store near my house and I also learned that the minimum wage here is R$390/month which is about $200/month. Divide that by about 20 work days a month and 8 work hours a day, and that brings you to about $1.25/hr.